$275
Estimate: $300 - $500
Auction: February 18, 2021 10:00:00 AM EDT
(New Orleans): Benjamin Levy, ca. 1830s. 5 1/2 x 6 3/4 in. (140 x 171 mm). Partially printed stock certificate for the Compagnie des Architectes de la ville de la Nouvelle-Orleans; MS. on verso; lightly worn.
Rare stock certificate for a building company in early Louisiana. By the 1830s the population of New Orleans was exploding, with many settlers coming from around the country and abroad. By the 1840s New Orleans had become the nation's wealthiest and third most populous city after New York and Baltimore.
Benjamin Levy was one of the most important publishers in early New Orleans, "He became one of the most active publishers in New Orleans during the period 1822-41, and was undoubtedly the first important Jewish printer-publisher not only in the South, but probably the entire country." (Benjamin Levy: New Orleans Printer and Publisher, Bertram W. Korn, p 229.). Levy published and sold law books, medical books, and the influential business guide "The New Orleans Price-Current and Commercial Intelligencer".